Introducing Slate’s totally imaginary simulation of what would happen if the world’s two great powers went to (actual) war.

They’re the two titans of the tech industry, and they command attention throughout the digital realm the way the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. once drove the geopolitical agendas of the entire world. They’ve sparred before, especially on the issue of Android vs. the iPhone. But what if the cold war between these two behemoths got hot? If Google and Apple went to actual war, who would win?

We asked two experts here at Slate to do a little wargaming. Tech columnist Farhad Manjoo will play Google. Moneybox columnist Matthew Yglesias will play Apple. Editor Dan Kois will play referee as Farhad and Matt imagine their way through a (totally speculative!) (fictional and not true!) Google vs. Apple all-out-war for world supremacy. Could Google erase Apple from the Internet? Could iPhones control killer drones over Mountain View? How different is Apple willing to think? And how evil is Google prepared to be?

Farhad Manjoo is a technology columnist for the New York Times and the author of True Enough.